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MILLER: Tolkien taught Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and other works of Middle
English. I went for three years to his lectures and he never finished because he was
always discovering new things, and thinking them through and literally acting them out in
the course of a lecture, so it was ongoing experiment. Pearl and Patience and other
Middle English works – he taught me Middle-English, and he was superb teacher, a great
character. So through C. S. Lewis, I was invited to meet him at a pub across the High
Street from Magdalen.
Q: Did he go into the pub, or whatever?
MILLER: Yes, well there were a number of us, at the Westgate pub, right across the street
from Magdalen. Tolkien was a don at Merton, which is right next door to Magdalen. I
saw him often as a human being. There was another member of the group named Hugo
Dyson, who was a Shakespearean, a little tiny man that looked like Santa Claus or Tom
Bombadil. So they were there all together, including Dorothy Sayer – most of the main
ones. They were also very close to some of the Catholics at Cowley Fathers, which was
where the Catholic intellectuals were. It was a natural community because it was a center
of the study of Renaissance, and medieval history, philosophy, and religious questions.
They were wonderful people, totally devoted to their subjects, and a great inspiration.
Tolkien’s Hobbit books were coming out at that time, that is, the Fellowship of the Ring,
while I was there.
Q: I recall that. I read a good review and I bought Volume One it was so good.
MILLER: Well, the three volumes are worth $28,000, his first editions. They are
published in every language and the copies in English number in the millions now.
Q: I’m not sure I got the first but I got something that everyone had.
MILLER: Well, they were published over four or five years. So they were coming out
when I was there. It was a marvelous experience to know the author as a teacher, and of
course the books are very powerful. My wife and I, we were just married. We lived in a
small Oxford flat and would read them together. They were often terrifying. So I knew
the Inklings as a student, and I valued them and their teaching and writing enormously.
Q: I’m appreciating this atmosphere of tremendous teachers, I mean, people whose
names will ring down through the centuries, probably.
MILLER: Isaiah Berlin, was there at the time too – all of his work has a great impact.
Q: In Oxford and all, were you conflicted as far as whither goest Bill Miller – because
things were happening in Europe? I mean the Cold War was really at its height and all.
MILLER: Yes very much so. I recall one trip. As you know, at Oxford they had long
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